In this Literacy class, we were preparing for the upcoming SAT test. Our class was studying American history and how it evolved into today society. We read a different article such as Newsela and Commonlit: Give me Death or Give me Liberty, Excerpt from Tomas Jefferson writing, Causes of Civil War, Excerpt from the Jungle, America shifting views on Immigration, and the Great Depression.
Because it is a long history, I wrote this poem as a replacement for the summary.
Once upon a time, this was America, 1850
She was white and black
She was born with red chains
Carried the rake since 1
Ground the soil when she turned 5
She didn’t know how to count the numbers
Because she didn’t get the salary
she couldn’t read the letters
So she did not dare to spell the word “Penny”
8 hours a day, didn’t dare to say “Pain”
Smile little buddy because it rains
Her dad used to be the president in 1809
He formed the cage with all his pride
Why is the moon never full
The scars that left by the slaves’ owner
1860, her fingers completely glued to debt
She paid her life even though she didn’t owe him
Another winter has passed, but the snow kept falling
1861, shoot fireworks to celebrate the U.S Civil War
620,000 people booked to die on the map
Freed slaves of the chains, not the cages
South, North, they fought and then they slept
Her father survived without his lungs
1865, haunted her in every dream
She had no lord to fix the horrifying theme
1892, she stayed strong like a steel
But trouble road pulled her apart
An unhealthy woman forced by the guides
Because they didn’t allow the old fungi in the new garden yard
She had to say goodbye to America
42 years meant nothing more than a stray cat
She walked away because she was half Asian
Stranger, Danger for all the white bats
1906, she snuck into the U.S to smell the beef
Rats as a friend, blended in the shop
Worked, washed her hands with a chopping board
spoiled sausages as her pillows with the manufacturing glob
They ate the bread, and she ate the stem of the rice plants
Drank her own tears with all the Chinese tea
She wanted to be rich, reached to the future
Gain the money to beat the Father of California Wine
1954, who knew the first bite she took
She was not white, not Christian and had no books
She dug her own grave to read and write
But Cholera took her journey away
Dear generation, her voice was mute
She was on her own in the Town of Baltimore
She wrote the poem to tell her story
To her future 2018, This was America